The Colour of Red Wine
by stellapurple219
Summary: In which Phil is gone. This is a bit of a sad one. Very slight trigger warning {self harm} but I promise it's extremely mild and non-graphic. That should explain the rating.


**I'm not completely sure how this happened, it's quite angsty but I like it a lot**

**and ARGH I can't do strikethroughs on this website so just pretend that ~this~ is a strikethrough, kay?**

* * *

To anyone who asked, Dan was doing okay. Great, in fact! It wasn't that he completely despised being alone. In fact, from time to time, in short sections, he quite enjoyed solitude. However, right now, when there wasn't the reassurance that he wouldn't have to be alone for too long, it didn't feel quite so pleasant.

For some reason, he didn't feel like singing out loud like he usually did when he was on his own. He didn't feel like doing anything much, really. Because Phil was gone, and this time he wasn't coming back.

Dan couldn't switch on a video game because he knew it would be preset to two-player mode, and he couldn't turn on ~their~ his iPod knowing that the memories would break him more than the activity could distract him. Both he and the apartment alike were filled with an eminent emptiness, without so much as the ghost of his bright-eyed companion. He even tried making their iconic pancakes, but for some reason they didn't taste any good when there was no-one to share them with.

It was ironic, Dan thought, how _fucking_ ironic, that all this time he'd been advocating himself as an individual, not a member of the inseparable duo, and yet now he'd give his own sanity to be with Phil again.

In the first few days when Phil had left, when the wounds were fresh and the blood was still as deep red as wine, he'd cried until he had no tears left to shed, until he'd remembered that crying would not make Phil come back. As each day went by it became slightly easier, or maybe slightly harder, he couldn't quite tell.

He didn't want to go into Phil's room, because he knew that when he did all he'd see was an expanse of nothing, a bed without colour and shelves stripped bare, as if every place that once held memories was mocking him; holding up large signs to show him again and again that Dan was on his own now.

A few days would pass and Dan would begin to feel that maybe, just maybe, it was getting easier. He'd begin to read a book, or maybe try to film a video. And for a little while, it would be alright. He could forget. But then the author would make a lion metaphor or he'd need the camera to be held for him as he filmed an intricate scene and then all of a sudden he was back at square one, a weeping mess of nothing but tears.

And then the blood was fresh and red again, because at least it made the pain go away for a short while. He knew it was wrong but he had nothing to cling to apart from the fragments of memories that would only ever be in the past.

Dan let his friends convince him to go out shopping with them, more because he didn't have the energy to refuse than because he actually wanted to. They took him around different clothes stores and cafes and finally to a trinket shop, and Dan would have left but the cashier had dark hair and blue eyes so he bought an ornament to collect dust in an unseen corner somewhere.

He hated crying, it made him feel weak and useless and pathetic. Crying was something that should be done alone, when no-one was there to witness your exposure. That was why Dan's crying was saved for the dark walls of three in the morning. And not even the liquid the colour of red wine could stain the darkness, which somehow felt like a justification even though it wasn't, not at all.

But to anyone who asked, Dan was okay, great in fact, and no one knew any different other than the crusted sheets and silent tendrils of the night.

* * *

**sorry for all of the sad stuff I've been churning out recently, idk go read 'I Promise I'll Never Let You Go' or something for fluffytimes**

**and also heads up, there may or may not be a new multi-chapter coming soon *wink wink***


End file.
